


Numbers

by gyromitra



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blind Jack, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/pseuds/gyromitra
Summary: Prompt: Soulmate au where your soulmate's name is written on your skin, except your character doesn't seem to have one for some reason. It is revealed eventually that they do have a name, actually, it's just that it's written in Braille.
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, mentioned Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison/Vincent
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	Numbers

It’s easy getting lost in whatever the fuck they are these days, one moment at each other’s throats with no regard for personal safety or collateral, the other, tearing into each other more viciously than bullets ever could. He supposes it’s as good as it gets when the back of his head hits the wall and red that isn’t red at all - this much he knows - gives way to something that is not black but the absence of any color itself, soon filled with fantastical shapes and bright explosions.

It used to give him migraines and insomnia. Later, he grew accustomed to the fact that closing his eyes did nothing.

The brain, this lump of fat and meat, always tries to compensate for what it lost and does it in its own twisted and confused way - trying to keep itself sane despite the wishes of the person inhabiting it. When his nerve endings dulled, the world became full of phantom touches and painful stabs, for months to no end. Some had resorted to cutting, some were spared, two went crazy. He outlasted it - the same way he would survive this too, every time it happens.

Claws dig into his neck tearing at the under-armor and he feels them carelessly nick the skin, feels the tickling of the blood slowly seeping from the cuts. Yes, the brain compensates, and losing his sight gave him his sense of touch back - gave him the pain back.

Gave him another kind of pain, too, the knowledge of the inevitable failure, and the senselessness of the world. All those years ago, he thought the name on his rib visible only when he tanned was Reyes in a fancy kind of script that made it hard to read, and god, had he tried then.

Vincent Reyes and his ‘Jack’ - but ‘Jack’ had never been his true name, only the face he wore for all the other people - and they had drifted apart, neither of them fighting for each other as their neared their end. It had been for the best, for Vincent to find one day his ‘Jack’, maybe.

The kiss - if it even could be called a kiss - steals his breath away as it always does, as it always had, and the awareness it will never be the same for the other man tore his heart to shreds long ago - such was the folly of carrying the name of someone who had none of his own. His fingers claw at the leather and kevlar, finding the branded in memory way around the clasps and buckles with the urgency of a starving man.

It had never been ‘Reyes’ for him, the irony revealed only after, two names layered on top of each other. ‘Reaper’. ‘Reyes’.

Stripping skin off, both physical and metaphorical, beaks and talons, and blood on their lips, two birds of prey yanking pieces of raw meat out. Two hawks in the cage.

He has no illusions of it being any different from the fight before merely changing its location, and yet.

Zurich took his sight but gave him back his touch, and he laughs now, hysterical, maniacal, crazed, because there it is, on Reyes’ - Reaper’s - back, the same as the unsent love letter adorning his own back, the lifetime of misery and doubt, and wish fulfillment.

He puts his palm to Reaper’s face he cannot see.

“You’ve got your name. It’s in Braille, on your nape. Know any ‘JG’ or ‘GF’?”

He wants to give it all back - the pain and the desperation - but he does not lie - won’t let it be a lie - because he hungers for the retribution. It’s a poor man’s deception but the name being there - being the name it is - being the number, not the name - it eviscerates him on the spot and bleeds him dry, and there is nothing that can be done. Could ever be done.

Alone, he pats the ground searching for the visor.

His name had never been ‘Jack’.

Maybe, the next time - if it ever comes - he will be finally free of it, one way or another.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from pillowfort.social/posts/954461.
> 
> This is a vent work. Posting it because why not?


End file.
